Eurofighter sale to Saudi Arabia

[Dawes]

Industry must be happy.

https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2024/01/08/german-leaders-abandon-blockade-of-eurofighter-sale-to-saudi-arabia/

[Ssnake]

"Value-based foreign policy"...

[Markus Becker]

British Pounds and Euros have value. Unlike official statements by 🚦members. 

And the Huthis gave them an easy excuse. 

[Yama]

Yeah, and the body was never found anyway...

[Mistral]

7 hours ago, Yama said:

Yeah, and the body was never found anyway...

I hear they used the embassy incinerator.

[seahawk]

10 hours ago, Ssnake said:

"Value-based foreign policy"...

This time it was a bit worse. We even thanked Saudi Arabia for shooting down drones and missiles form Yemen heading for Israel. We were totally fine with those weapons hitting Saudi Arabia though.

[DB]

At what point did German foreign policy makers lose sight of the fact that foreign policy is supposed to support the interests of the state, not some sort of Greta Thunberg-style posturing?

[Mistral]

7 minutes ago, DB said:

At what point did German foreign policy makers lose sight of the fact that foreign policy is supposed to support the interests of the state, not some sort of Greta Thunberg-style posturing?

Or in other words how does a state sponsored poisoning differs from dismemberment and incineration of an undesirable😂

[BansheeOne]

1 hour ago, DB said:

At what point did German foreign policy makers lose sight of the fact that foreign policy is supposed to support the interests of the state, not some sort of Greta Thunberg-style posturing?

I'd say in 2000 with the revision of arms export guidelines under the first Schröder cabinet. 😉 Though arguably, previous policy like granting production licenses for small arms to various holiday ressorts á la Iran and Pakistan didn't always exactly turn out to support the interests of the state down the road, either.

[Ssnake]

One could, of course, also ask who defines "the interests of the state". The answer ultimately is, every administration is making the shit up as they go, unless some power-hungry civil servant within the state bureaucracy leverages his own position to create a second, private foreign policy (looking at you, Sir Humphrey).

[seahawk]

3 hours ago, DB said:

At what point did German foreign policy makers lose sight of the fact that foreign policy is supposed to support the interests of the state, not some sort of Greta Thunberg-style posturing?

How dare you question our Analena? It is a form of art to export the weapons and still insult the buyer and every other nation involved in the process.

[Ssnake]

You can force her to accept reality, but you can't force her to do it with dignity.

(...to paraphrase Bill Watterson/Calvin and Hobbes)

[seahawk]

8 minutes ago, Ssnake said:

You can force her to accept reality, but you can't force her to do it with dignity.

(...to paraphrase Bill Watterson/Calvin and Hobbes)

When you wish for Guido to return...

[bojan]

3 hours ago, BansheeOne said:

...granting production licenses for small arms to various holiday ressorts á la Iran and Pakistan didn't always exactly turn out to support the interests of the state down the road, either.

Small arms are small fish, it is no longer 1886, and it was not even in the 1960s. Everyone who wanted to manufacture those was going to get a license from someone sooner or later, so Germany did OK and got a money for a (yeah controversial opinion, I know) largely irrelevant technology. Consequences were... none really, since, again, small arms as a whole are irrelevant in the grand scale.

Comparing those to fighter aircrafts is comparing sidewalk bootleg cigarette seller to a multi billion dollar company...

Edited January 10, 2024 by bojan

[Markus Becker]

And let's not forget that particularly Iran was quite different in the past. 

[BansheeOne]

It was; a pro-Western authoritarian regime with a disregard for human rights rather than an anti- Western authoritarian regime with a disregard for human rights. Who could ever have foreseen it would change like that? 😁

Incidentally, if your concern is human rights and oppression of dissidents, small arms are actually much worse than aircraft or ships (hence the phrase in German export politics that "anything that swims, goes"), and it's typically treated like that by those pushing for more restrictive policy. In that sense, today's follow-up decision to deliver 150 IRIS-T, too, shouldn't be controversial among activists, right? 😉

[seahawk]

So two missiles for each Eurofighter .....

[DB]

Carpet bombing dissident villagers with chemical weapons is something of a tradition in that area. Can't imagine who started that...

[Markus Becker]

7 minutes ago, BansheeOne said:

It was; a pro-Western authoritarian regime with a disregard for human rights rather than an anti- Western authoritarian regime with a disregard for human rights. Who could ever have foreseen it would change like that? 😁

Imperial Iran was a secular dictatorship and probably several orders of magnitude less murderous wrt it's domestic opponents than the current regime, that also has world revolution and genocide as official policy goals. 

[bojan]

35 minutes ago, BansheeOne said:

....Incidentally, if your concern is human rights and oppression of dissidents, small arms are actually much worse than aircraft or ships...

Point is that those can be sourced pretty much everywhere and Germany not selling = buying from someone else, not  "will run out of small arms to shoot dissidents". In the end is it better if money used for inevitable purchase of small arms is given to Germany or China?

While airforce items, due the much more complicated logistics around those it is not exactly possibly to say "will get something from China after using western tech for 50 years and switch without issue".

 

[glenn239]

5 hours ago, DB said:

At what point did German foreign policy makers lose sight of the fact that foreign policy is supposed to support the interests of the state, not some sort of Greta Thunberg-style posturing?

February 2022.

[BansheeOne]

29 minutes ago, Markus Becker said:

Imperial Iran was a secular dictatorship and probably several orders of magnitude less murderous wrt it's domestic opponents than the current regime, that also has world revolution and genocide as official policy goals. 

And as everyone knows, dictatorships are totally stable government systems which never need to fear a popular backlash, revolution, and complete change of geopolitical orientation while retaining the same methods of government. Which is why, say, the House of Saud has never been and will never be in danger of being overthrown by local Islamists who will proceed to use the same tools supplied to the former. Just like Libya, Sudan, and others I cud name.

If we're talking national interests rather than human rights, including some thought about potential future developments based upon historic experience is not amiss.

6 minutes ago, bojan said:

Point is that those can be sourced pretty much everywhere and Germany not selling = buying from someone else, not  "will run out of small arms to shoot dissidents". In the end is it better if money used for inevitable purchase of small arms is given to Germany or China?

While airforce items, due the much more complicated logistics around those it is not exactly possibly to say "will get something from China after using western tech for 50 years and switch without issue".

Well Iran seemed to do sorta okay with their F-4/5/14, Hueys and Cobras etc. after they sorted themselves out. But yeah, "if we don't sell to them, someone else will" is of course a common and not entirely wrong argument.

[Markus Becker]

Dictatorships were and still are the default form of government in that part of the world and one can only work with what's there. Or let someone else work with them instead of you and maybe against you. 

Saudi Arabia with Eurofighters vs Iran with nukes? 

[Yama]

1 hour ago, seahawk said:

So two missiles for each Eurofighter .....

Yeah, Luftwaffe must be green with envy